On March 20, former federal court judge Marcus Einfeld was sentenced to three years jail, with a non-parole period of two years, for trying to get out of a speeding fine.
Analysis
The tiny Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives will become carbon-neutral within 10 years. This was the pledge made by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed on March 15.
The low-lying country will be among the first in the world to be inundated by rising sea levels caused by human-induced climate change. The highest point in the chain of 1200 islands and coral atolls is just 1.8 metres above sea-level.
In 2002, the CityPass consortium was awarded the contract to build and run the Jerusalem light rail. Amnesty International, the Arab League, and unions, church and community groups worldwide have condemned this project as another step in Israel's annexation of Palestinian land.
In the late evening of March 15, the NSW correctional services department used management personnel to transfer 107 prisoners from the Cessnock jail in preparation for its privatisation.
Australian agriculture both contributes to climate change and is adversely affected by it. Any campaign in to force urgent government action on climate change has to include a demand for the radical transformation of rural land use and farming systems to be ecologically sustainable.
Climate activists have been campaigning against the governments so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) long before the exposure legislation was tabled in parliament on March 10.
The federal ALP government’s Fair Work Bill passed through the Senate on March 20 after intense wheeling and dealing with Family First Senator Steve Fielding and independent Senator Nick Xenophon.
A boat-load of asylum seekers believed to be from Afghanistan has been intercepted by the Australian navy and sent to the Christmas Island detention centre.
Soubhi Iskander is a leading member of the Sudanese Australia Human Rights Association, a committee based in Sydneys west, that campaigns for the rights of Sudanese refugees. SAHRA is also an affiliate of the Socialist Alliance.
On March 11, a 185-metre container ship, the Pacific Adventurer was en route from Newcastle to Indonesia via Brisbane when it lost 31 containers in heavy seas about seven nautical miles east of Cape Moreton.
The ingredients of big-business operations in NSW were all there: a multinational tourism operator; environmental groups with varying interests; a donation to the NSW Labor Party; the apparent channelling of another donation; a local council decision overturned by the Land and Environment Court; and development approved by the then-Labor Party planning minister, Frank Sartor.
On March 16, federal immigration minister Chris Evans announced that the Rudd government would cut the skilled migration intake for the current financial year by 18,500. This, claimed Evans in a ministerial statement, would “protect local jobs”.
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